Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Merry Christmas to everyone! The holidays have been fun filled and crazy for the Kings. Our usual 2 week trip to Kentucky at Christmas was cut back to only one week this year. Guess that's part of Curtis' job and I'm sure it will only getting worse with each year. But having only a week at home has now provided us with the much needed time to relax a little at home with no school and less work for Curtis. Some much needed family time is always a blessing. Although we seem to fill the days with "projects" of things to get done. We had a ton of fun visiting with friends and family in KY. As always I got to spend time with Andrea and her family at home. It really makes me miss the old days of being with everybody. That's what stinks about living all over the country but it makes it so sweet when we all see each other again. I got to see my great friend Julie from college and also Natalie, another childhood friend. And of course there was all of the family, from Curtis' family and mine. The kids had so much fun with their grandparents and cousins. I don't know how it will turn out, but I hope one day they have that feeling of home when we go to KY. Here are tons of pictures from the holidays. The first ones are the kids Christmas pictures that Stacy Joyner, another military wife took for us. She does an awesome job for anyone around here who need photos. Here they are.

I don't think they're ever this sweet to each other.

Arabella's kindergarten picture

Hayden's preschool picture

These are from Curtis' batallion Christmas party. When we got there we went to his office to find him. Ray, one of the contractors, was dressed as Santa and in Curtis' office. All of their mouths dropped open right away. Curtis said " I bet you guys didn't know Daddy knew Santa? You better all be good or I'll be calling Santa when you misbehave." I was priceless!

Tate was not about to set on Santa's lap.




These are from Hayden's preschool, decorating Christmas cookies. I think Tate had just as much fun.

These are pictures of Tate with Andrea's little boy, Cameron. I hope one day they'll be big buddies.

So this is the dog Arabella begged Curtis for during Christmas. My mom has a daschaund dog and Arabella has always wanted one. She told Curtis she would take all of her birthday money and he could have all of her Christmas present if she could have the dog. He said no, which is not unusual. But we're working on it. She is now feeding and watering Flash to show Daddy she can be responsible. She working on getting her a puppy. I think I want it as bad as she does. Plus if we're not going to have another baby then I need something to hold and cuddle.

We actually got a decent picture of our whole family together. Amazing!

At least got on Santa's lap this time, right? He wasn't too happy about it as you can see. He didn't cry though.

Just what we needed, Hulk hands to fight with. We didn't get just one pair, but two. That way they can fight each other. (since they don't do that enough anyways, right?) They do have a lot of fun with them. Curtis said he needs to go buy a third pair for himself. I think he enjoys them as much as the boys.

Tate is Batman crazy right now, like Hayden. So everyone got them Batman toys. I think we now have every toy put on the shelf. Every time Tate opened a Batman toy he would growl and sqeeze his arms and say "Batman." He got so bad that on Christmas Day Curtis opened up a black dress sweater from my Grandmother and Tate growled at Curtis and said "Batman costume." It was way too cute.

Arabella got a Hannah Montana bean bag and new blanket that Nannie made. So Happy!

Arabella's Birthday and Thanksgiving

It's been a while since I've updated our blog. All of the kids have been sick with chest colds, Hayden has gotten an infection on his legs from his chicken pox and Tate has strep throat and a double ear infection. It just makes me wonder how does a mom work and take care of kids. It just doesn't seem possible to me. Anyways, Arabella's birthday was the Tuesday before Thanksgiving and she turned 6 years old. I can't believe she's halfway through Kindergarten. So big so fast. So for her birthday she decided she wanted to go to Kiddie Vegas, a.k.a. Chuck E. Cheese. We took her and the boys there for dinner and let her open her gifts from us and our families. She did quite well being patient and waiting till the end of the day to open her gifts. It would have been killing me if I was her. She was so excited to get the Hannah Montana and High School Musical Wii games along with pajamas and some Hannah Montana crocs. Needless to say there has been a lot of singing and dancing going on at our house these days. I know it's bad that I enjoy playing the games with her. But they really are so much fun. It makes me feel young again. We finished off the day with some rides and games, some birthday spankings at home and had a fun fun evening with just our little family. Happy Birthday baby girl!

For Thanksgiving this year we went to Gatlinburg, TN with 2 other families who are long time military friends of ours, Katie and Bruce Lloyd and Jody and Matt Miller. We rented a cabin in the mountains for 4 nights. There were 8 kids ranging from 4 months to almost 7 years old. All boys, except for Arabella. We packed up the kids, food and the MarioKart and enjoyed our friends for a few days of feasting and fun. Most of the time we were there someone in some part of the house was playing MarioKart on the Wii. We had a Wii upstairs and one downstairs. We had a great hottub out on the balcony overlooking the mountains. The day after Thanksgiving the girls ventured out to the outlets for a little shopping. We visited the Ripley's Aquarium and dined on some Mexican food on Saturday. By the way, anyone who ever goes to any of the Ripley's attractions-they have HUGE discounts for military families. So on our last night there we put the kids to bed early and played a little catch phrase as usual. Oh, and we put a huge hunk of leftover ham on the front porch to try to see the bear who frequently visits the area. I know, we're crazy. We jumped at every little noise we heard. But, no bear. The next morning we found out from our neighbors that he had come visiting earlier that night around dusk. Oh well, maybe next year. Here's some pictures from our excursion. This child LOVES hot tubs.